


Here's Your Holiday

by WhiteSpiritOfDarkness



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Crying, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, References to Depression, kid with divorced parents culture, sir this is my emotional support vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 12:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19109668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteSpiritOfDarkness/pseuds/WhiteSpiritOfDarkness
Summary: He’d hoped that a teacher would find him and drag him to the Principal’s office and his parents had to come pick him up, just so their day would be ruined the same way his life had been ruined for over a week now.





	Here's Your Holiday

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Stay Together for the Kids by Blink-182
> 
> Enjoy!

“Hey”

Roman lifted his head. Virgil was staring at him from the door of the empty classroom where Roman had decided to hide nearly two hours ago. Sunlight threatened to filter through the dark blinds Roman had made sure to close when he arrived. It wasn’t his usual style, but he didn’t feel like facing the day. Or his classmates, or his teachers, or his friends, or anything. 

Virgil walked into the room after gesturing something to someone in the corridor, probably Patton or Logan or both, not that Roman cared. He’d shot a quick text in the groupchat telling them to not worry about him after disappearing before Math class. He’d also turned off his phone afterwards, so he had no idea how long he’d spent on the floor of the old Arts classroom, hoping that no one would go looking for him. 

No, that was a lie. He’d hoped that a teacher would find him and drag him to the Principal’s office and his parents had to come pick him up, justo so their days would be ruined the same way his life had been ruined for over a week now. But only his friends had cared, and Roman had to bite back a snarky remark as Virgil walked among desks. He should have know that they wouldn’t leave him alone for too long. They were probably worried about him. 

“How did you find me?”, he asked watching as Virgil dropped his bag next to his and sat down with his back against the wall. Virgil was wearing his hoodie, and for the first time Roman realized how cold the room was. The air conditioning must have been on even before Roman got there. His uniform shirt was crumpled, and there dust stains all over his black pants. Maybe that would be enough to piss off his mother, he mused. 

Virgil raised an eyebrow before answering. “Honestly, we assumed you’d be here right after you left. Patton wanted to follow you straight away, but Logan thought it would be best if we gave you some space”. 

Roman hummed noncommittally. Leave it to Logan to be the only brain cell of the group, again. He would have probably screamed at Patton if he had followed him, so it really had been for the better.

“We made up some excuse for you, but we figured we should try to find you before a teacher decided to call your mom” said Virgil, playing with a fidget cube and avoiding Roman’s eyes. The mention of his mom reminded him why he was in the classroom, why he hadn’t done his homework, why he’d turned off his phone and why he wanted to be alone. 

“We saw Remy, you know” continued Virgil after realizing he would not be getting a response from Roman. “He looked like a mess. What the hell happened, Princey?” 

At the mention of his younger brother, Roman’s hand closed into a fist. He didn’t know what was going inside his brother's head, because they hadn’t talked in days. He couldn’t forget his screams, or the new dark circles underneath his eyes, or the  dirty cups of coffee that piled up on his brother’s desk. Remy usually drank green tea; he hated coffee.

“Princey?” Virgil’s voice seemed to come from a mile away. He was shaking and there was a desperate sob trying to find its way out of his throat. He would not cry. He hadn’t cried yet. He’d known it was coming, he knew for how long it had been boiling under the surface, the sleepless nights that his mother spent in the living room, the way his father ignored what was happening right in front of his eyes. He knew it was for the best, so why, why, why couldn’t he just accept it? Why couldn’t he just get over it? 

“Roman!” he finally snapped back to reality. Virgil’s hands were over his own, trying to get him to stop clenching his fists so hard. There was a dull sting in his palms where his fingernails had started to pierce the flesh, and his eyes hurt with the effort to keep himself together. Virgil’s eyes kept trying to meet his, but Roman knew that as soon as they made eye contact he’d break down, and that couldn’t happen., it just couldn’t happen, because Roman was the strong one, the older child, the one who had known ever since he could remember. 

“Roman, breathe” said Virgil, and this time Roman let himself listen to his friend. Virgil managed to make him loosen up his fingers, and slowly the anger faded into the background of his mind, leaving him with the heavy feeling of the tears in the back of his throat. He focused on Virgil’s fingers, still holding his wrists, probably checking for his pulse. 

“One, two, three, four” counted Virgil, and Roman followed him in the breathing exercise that all of them had learned just in case after Virgil himself had an awfully strong panic attack. He could feel his lungs filling, and the pressure on his chest lessened up a bit. 

“Thanks” he said after a while. Virgil had stopped counting after a couple minutes, but he kept his fingers loosely around Roman’s wrists, grounding him. He still looked worried, and Roman sighed, letting his head fall against the wall. 

“I don’t know what happened, Ro” started Virgil, but Roman shaked his head and he shut up. Roman took a deep breath and said, “My parents are divorcing” .

There it was. He’d said it out loud for the first time. Now it was real, tangible, and now his friends would know and Remy would hate him even more because he’d told them and-

Virgil was silent, but there was no sign of pity in his deep, brown eyes. At some point he’d let go of his hands, and Roman hated that he wished he hadn’t, because he needed something to hold on, something to make sure he was still awake. He had tried to pretend that it was all a nightmare for so long now. 

“They are divorcing, they told us a week ago, my dad is leaving, or my mother, one of them is gonna leave by the end of the week, and they are fighting over who stays with me and Remy, and-” he paused, trying to keep his voice from cracking up. He kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling lamp, which was broken. Broken,  just like his stupid family. “I hate it so much, Virgil. I hate that I knew it would happen, that I've known all my life, I hate… I hate that there’s nothing I can do, because it’s necessary. They were falling apart for so long… I knew it would happen”. 

The anger was back, but this time Roman was tired. He was tired of pretending it was alright, that this was the best solution. He was tired of fighting his own depression on top of having to live in a house with two people that couldn’t even look at each other in the eye. He hated how pale Remy looked, he hated having to hear his brother’s sobs in the middle of the night and not knowing how to breach the distance between their beds in their shared room. He hated that both his mom and his dad wanted to stay with them and he hated that he knew they had to stay with their mother, because she was just a thousand times better at being an adult than their dad. He hated that Remy blamed their mom and that he blamed their dad. 

“I don’t know what to do, Virge” he confessed. His voice was barely a whisper. Despite his best efforts, a tear rolled down his cheek. 

“You don’t have to do anything” he heard Virgil say, and he finally turned to look at him. Virgil looked softer than he’d ever seen him, and before Roman had time to answer, his friend opened his arms and looked at him. 

“Come here, Princey”

For a second he thought about refusing, but something deep inside him needed a hug. When he launched himself into his friends arms, it was with the force of a week of trying to not fall apart, with all the tears that he’d refused to shed, with all the words he had not screamed. He was crying now, and he was babbling, forgetting all about his dignity. There was only the pain around his heart and Virgil’s strong arms keeping him tied to the earth, reminding him that he had a right to feel as much as he had to. Virgil was practically squeezing him and Roman was sure that he was making a mess of tears and snot on Virgil’s jacket, but he also knew that it wasn’t important. 

“-it’s okay, Roman, you don’t have to be strong, not for this, you don’t have to do anything” he heard Virgil repeating a mantra next to his ear. His voice was soothing and soft, and only served to make him cry even harder. He was full on sobbing, and he cried and cried until he was sure he couldn’t cry anymore. Virgil kept rubbing his back and talking softly as he did, and only when he felt his throat aching and his eyes burning he dared let go of him. 

“I’m so tired, Virge” he said, and one last tear fell from his eye. He felt raw, defenseless; the weight on his shoulders too heavy to bear. Back home he’d have to put on his headphones and play the loudest songs he had on his phone, just to avoid talking to anyone. 

“It shows, Princey. You look like a mess” said Virgil with a half smile, before reaching and grabbing one of his hands. Their laced fingers reminded Roman that, no, he didn’t have to be alone, not anymore. 

“Listen, I don’t know how you’re feeling” continued Virgil, giving his hand a soft squeeze. Roman nodded, after all, it was true. “But you are my friend, and that means that I’m here for you. You don’t have to hide whatever it is that you’re feeling. If you don’t wanna tell Lo and Pat, that’s fine, I can hold them off or tell them so they won’t ask questions, but please don’t shut us out”

Silence fell once again over the classroom, and Roman used the quiet moments to breathe deeply. Virgil’s hand was warm in the cold room, keeping him from taking a leap into darker thoughts. Yes, it hurt deeply, and he still had tears to cry, but maybe he could wait. He still had to talk to his parents, and he still didn’t know what to do about his brother, but he’d be okay for the rest of the day. There would be countless days where he would want to hit the walls, and thinking about Christmas was depressing at best, but.. 

“Let’s go to class” he said, and Virgil grinned. 

Yes, he would be okay. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr as white-spirit-of-darkness.tumblr.com  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
